


Memories of a Past Life

by bisexualamy



Series: Howard Stark: Conflicted Jew [2]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alcohol, Angst, Gen, Jewish Character, Jewish Howard Stark
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-03
Updated: 2016-06-03
Packaged: 2018-07-11 17:51:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,522
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7063582
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bisexualamy/pseuds/bisexualamy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He knocked back the rest of the brandy in the glass and went to pour himself another.  Tony considered stopping him, and then decided it was none of his business if his father wanted to drink himself to death.</p><p>“What’s with the candle, Dad?” Tony asked.  “The lights are on.”</p><p>“My parents died when I was fourteen,” Howard replied, as if this was an answer.  “Did you know that?”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Memories of a Past Life

**Author's Note:**

> I just really needed some older Howard Stark dealing with his conflicted feelings about his Jewish identity, so here you go. This takes place in the same universe as my [Jewish Howard Stark backstory fic,](http://archiveofourown.org/works/6995077/chapters/15936640) so all of my information about Howard's parents comes straight from that. Warnings for internalized antisemitism and minor alcohol abuse. Also wow, Howard had kids late in life.
> 
> Please forgive me if I butchered the Yiddish. I used a Yiddish-English dictionary, but I have no idea if the tenses are correct. Any corrections are appreciated.

No kid ever wants to see their parents drunk, and for all of Howard Stark’s flaws, Tony Stark at least thought that his father would respect that. Evidently, he was not so lucky.  

One October night, 1986, saw Tony out late, driving one of his father’s many cars without permission, again.  When he pulled into the driveway and saw the living room light on through the shut curtains, he swore.  Why were his parents up this late, anyway?  His father was almost seventy.  Didn’t men close to seventy go to bed before three in the morning?  Even his workaholic father would have to slow down sometime, and a night when Tony wanted to sneak in unannounced seemed as good a time as ever.  As he walked up the front steps he drew in a breath, bracing himself for what he knew was going to be a serious chewing out, and reluctantly went into the house.

Instead of hearing passive aggressive reprimands, however, he was overwhelmed by the smell of brandy.  He turned to see a bottle of the stuff sitting on the coffee table, over halfway emptied, and his father, sitting on the couch holding a glass.  Next to the brandy bottle sat a small, lit candle.

“I see you’re home, Tony,” Howard said with a sigh, his enunciation not all there.  It was clear that while Howard hadn’t started the bottle that evening, he’d certainly had more than enough to get the job done.  “And I suppose you took one of my good cars, like you always do.  I’ll deal with that later.”

He knocked back the rest of the brandy in the glass and went to pour himself another.  Tony considered stopping him, and then decided it was none of his business if his father wanted to drink himself to death.

“What’s with the candle, Dad?” Tony asked.  “The lights are on.”

“My parents died when I was fourteen,” Howard replied, as if this was an answer.  “Did you know that?”

“Yes, you told me,” Tony said, and it was true.  That was one of the only things Tony knew about his grandparents, but it usually came in the context of Howard saying, “my parents died when I was fourteen, and if you don’t shape up soon you’ll put me in an even earlier grave.”

“My mother, she died in August, and my father, that was November,” Howard continued.  “Did you know I was at school both times?  Both times I came home to have someone else tell me one of my parents was dead.”  He chuckled, taking another sip of his brandy.  “I don’t remember the date for either of them.  My mother died on a Friday, though.  She was going to come home early to light the candles…”

He trailed off, lost in some memory.  Tony knew it would be best to leave this situation before it got weirder, but he felt rooted to the spot.  His father never talked about his parents, and so Tony never learned about them.  He used to spend hours when he was little dreaming up that they were loving and attentive and would bake him cookies and take him shopping.  Proper grandparents, and different from his father in every way.  

If getting his old man drunk on brandy was the way to find out the actual truth, then who was Tony to interfere with that?  Resigning himself to at least a bit more time with his drunk dad, he sat in a nearby armchair and continued to listen.

At that moment, Howard laughed at something that never left his mouth.  “She used to yell at me,” he said, continuing to laugh at his own memories.  The sound was joyful and teary at the same time, something Tony had never seen his father be before, and it felt distinctly personal. “She’d say, ‘Howard, you think you’re more important than Shabbos?  That sundown is a suggestion to you?’ Then she’d tell me I was talking crazy when I tried to make an excuse.  What did she call it?   _ Meshugaas.” _  At this point he lapsed into a different language, and Tony could only assume he was still quoting his mother.

_ “Dayn meshugaas veln araynzetsn mikh a fri keyver.” _

“Is that German?” Tony asked.  This made his father smile.

“Yiddish,” he said.  “I used to speak it, you know.  I spoke it growing up.  Kept it ‘til around my twenties and then, well, life take over.”  Howard sighed, finishing off his glass again before saying, “it’s fifty-five years, this year.  Fifty-five years since they died.  It’s not the exact yahrzeit but I figured-”  He stopped, staring at the candle on the coffee table until the little flame burned bright in his eyes.  “I figured it couldn’t hurt.  But it did.”  His tone turned bitter at this, muttering, “this stuff always hurts me.”

“The brandy?” Tony asked.

“No, the Jewish stuff,” Howard sneered.  “She loved it so damn much.  She was so proud of it.  Look at where it got her, got both of them.  She died in a fire doing endless labor for Depression wages, and he died because no one bothered to check if the poor Jew lying on the sidewalk was still breathing.”

“You’re Jewish?” Tony asked incredulously.  That was certainly a shock.  He could’ve sworn his parents got married in a church, and while the Starks had never been a family for religious traditions, they annually celebrated Christmas, minus the churchgoing.  How could he have not known, this whole time, about his father’s background?

“Was Jewish,” his father corrected.  “I know when to give up on a lost cause.  Americans hate Jews, Tony.  They wouldn’t let the son of two Russian Jews touch their businesses.  If they had known where I came from, they would’ve tossed me out on the sidewalk with yesterday’s trash, regardless of my talent.  Apparently, ‘my kind’ can’t be trusted.  Our talent’s not worth the risk.  Now look at who’s having the last laugh.”

It was obvious to Tony that this was a hollow victory to his father.  The pain across Howard’s face when he repeated just a few of the antisemitic truisms of his time was unprecedented in Tony’s experience with the man.  A sober Howard Stark wouldn’t blink in the face of such statements, perhaps even laugh along with the crowd, but in the privacy of his own home, under the shroud of drunkenness, he could take off the gentile mask. He’d sold part of his soul for success, and now it was finally catching up to him.

Howard set the empty glass down on the coffee table, leaning in closer to the candle.

“I shouldn’t have lit this,” he said.  “I haven’t been to shul since they died.  It’s not even a real yahrzeit candle, just a candle we had lying around.  I’ve only ever seen a real one once, when my father sat Shiva for my mother after the fire.”

His eyes stayed locked on the candle as he drew in some air.  He paused with the breath still sitting in his chest, as if he was mustering up the strength to do something, and then, in a split second, blew out the tiny flame.

“You’re supposed to let them burn themselves out,” Howard muttered, “but that’s a fire hazard.  She wouldn’t want me going the same way she did.”

Tony found it inappropriate to say that he found this to be more of an excuse than honoring his dead grandmother’s hypothetical wishes.  His father grabbed the brandy bottle, the glass, and the candle, and brought them into the kitchen.  As he stumbled around in the next room, Tony stared at where the candle had been sitting, as if this was a link to his dead grandparents.  He had a feeling that his father would never speak of his parents or Jewish heritage again, at least around Tony, and he wanted to hold onto this moment for as long as he could.

“Go upstairs!” came the gruff shout from the kitchen.  “And don’t wake your mother just because you couldn’t make your curfew.”

Evidently, the moment wasn’t destined to last long.

Not seeing a point in arguing with his drunk father, Tony did his best to quietly climb the stairs.  Once safely in his room, he changed and got into bed, trying to push the memories of what had just transpired to the following morning when he could better understand them.  Downstairs, Howard Stark walked back into the living room, looking at the empty coffee table.  After giving himself a moment, he switched off the lights and also went upstairs.  He could get into bed next to his beautiful wife and wake up the next morning with the country’s industry in the palm of his hand.  He was a millionaire, a giant, many called him a genius, but most of all, he was the very embodiment of the American Dream.  That Jewish boy from the Lower East Side had beat them all at their rigged game.  So what if he had to reinvent his life to do it?  He wasn’t above bargaining with his soul.

**Author's Note:**

> Meshugaas is Yiddish for nonsense/crazy talk. The Yiddish sentence Howard's mother said was supposed to be "your crazy talk will put me in an early grave." If you want more information about what a Yahrzeit is, [this](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bereavement_in_Judaism#Yahrtzeit) is a good place to start. Shiva is a set of traditions Jews do when someone has died, while Yahrzeit is the anniversary of that death.


End file.
